Viewing Project Collaborators WhoWork on Interrelated Requirements

• Main Authors: Irwin Kwan, Marczak, S., Damian, D.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Collaborative software; Collaborative work; Delay; Displays; Documentation; International collaboration; Lead; Programming; Software engineering; Visualization
• ISSN: 1090-705X; 2332-6441
• DOI: 10.1109/RE.2007.55

Project collaborators in a software development project need to stay aware not only of changes to requirements and other artifacts, but also of each other's current work. The set of team members working on a requirement is dynamic, and team members who were not assigned to the requirement in the plan may be involved. If this requirement changes, those team members who are dependent on that requirement must be notified quickly before they do outdated work. However, project plans often do not provide an easy method of listing all of the emergent team members who should be notified of changes to a requirement. We propose a requirements-dependency diagram that displays interdependent requirements and team members who are assigned to these interdependent requirements. The visualization highlights prominent collaborators, lists each collaborator and each requirement only once, marks emergent collaborators, and is simple and clutter-free. By viewing this diagram, collaborators will know who to contact to notify others of changes to requirements, and can contact experts working on interrelated requirements.